


It is frightful not to live

by Sermocinare



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Do You Permit It?, Everybody Dies, Gen, Revolutionaries vs Zombies, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sermocinare/pseuds/Sermocinare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No barricade can hold forever, and in the end, death always wins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It is frightful not to live

They barricaded the streets with anything they could find. They tore up the pavement, dragged every piece of furniture out into the street and piled it up until they had a wall that was as tall as two men. It has been five days since then, and the barricade was slowly crumbling.

They were not intelligent, these creatures. They were not fast, not nimble, and they could not even climb. But they were strong, and they were persistent. They grabbed onto everything in front of them and tore at it until it came loose. 

At first, they had shot at every creature in sight. It had not taken them long to realize that the only way you could stop the monsters was by a shot to the head. But the fiends just kept on coming, and now that they were almost out of munitions, they were saving the bullets they had left for those who tore at the most vital parts of the protective walls they had built around themselves. 

“I wonder what it is that animates them,” Combeferre mused. He was sitting on the bare earth of the street, his back resting against a table. “After all, they have no beating heart. We shoot them, but they do not bleed. They are, for all intents and purposes, dead already, and yet they move.”

“And they hunger,” Courfeyrac said. “They hunger and moan and claw at the barricade, trying to get at us and tear the flesh from our bones.”

“Maybe there is some remnant, some spark of life left burning in their brain, and what they are after isn't our flesh, but our very own life force.”

“Ever the philosopher, Combeferre. Even when surrounded by re-animated corpses.” There was a hint of a smile in Courfeyrac's voice, and that was enough to make Combeferre smile as well.

Enjolras had not smiled, not since two days ago, when they had watched in horror as Prouvaire, who had ventured out to look for food and ammunition, had been torn apart by the creatures. He had been sitting on his vantage point up high on the barricade, his eyes seldom leaving the shambling crowd on the other side. Occasionally, when one of them had gotten too close to dislodging something that might have caused a chain reaction and brought what was left of the barricade down, he had raised his rifle and killed it with a precise shot to the head. 

He was blaming himself for Prouvaire's death. He should have stopped him. He should have tried to save him, but there had been so many, and his hands had been shaking from hearing his friend scream. So he had been sitting there, unmoving, his eyes never leaving the wall that separated the living from the walking dead. 

“If only we had a cannon or two.” Bossuet was peering out through a small hole in the barricade, wide enough to see a little sliver of the street, but not big enough for a hand to grab through. 

By now, everyone made quite sure to stay away from any opening wide enough for that. Bahorel had assembled a small pile of those hands that had come grabbing through the barricade. “Every hand that is on this side is one less to tear away at the other.”

“And for what use, Bossuet?” Combeferre said. “Even if we killed 20 of them with one shot, there would be the same number lumbering up the street to fill the gap an hour later.”

“Judging by the uniforms some of the monsters are wearing,” Bahorel interjected, looking up from the task of sharpening the ax he had found in the cellar of the Corinthe, “even the armaments of the National Guard weren't enough to save them.”

Courfeyrac frowned, his brows pulling together in worry: “Then I wonder: who is going to save us? What if we are the last people alive in the whole of Paris?”

“Then we will die,” Enjolras said, his gaze leaving the foot of the barricade for a moment to look at his friends, his eyes dark with sorrow. “Let us hope that humanity, as a whole, might survive.”

–

It took another day for the barricade to fall. There was no more ammunition, and without a means to stop them, the advancing horde of the re-animated dead tore down the barricade. They came crawling through gaping holes, stumbling over ramps of fallen furniture, and even the thick wooden door of the Corinthe was no match for their unrelenting, clawing hands. 

Bossuet stumbled and got torn apart limb by limb. Feuilly, Bahorel and Joly had their flesh ripped from their bones. Combeferre, trying in vain to save Coufeyrac, had his throat torn out. 

Enjolras was the only one who had managed to flee into the uppermost floor of the Corinthe. He could see the writhing mass of cold, gray hands groping through the opening where once the stairs had been, and he retreated to the far and of the room, his body shaking, the utter terror that had nested in his soul finally breaking free with a sob. 

It was this that awoke Grantaire, who, unable to face the inevitable death of his friends through sober eyes, had been lying slumped over a nearby table in a drunken stupor. 

Blinking and shaking his head, he asked Enjolras, his voice cracked from disuse: “Did they fall?”

Enjolras nodded: “All of them.”

Grantaire clenched his fists, his jaw trembling. Then, he reached underneath the table and pulled out a pistol before going over to Enjolras' side.

“I have two shots left.” His eyes searched for those of Enjolras, his free hand reaching out for the other man. “Do you permit it?”

Enjolras nodded, clasping Grantaire's hand.


End file.
